Laughter
by Hemoptysis
Summary: ...Isn't ALWAYS the very best medicine, as one unfortunate survivor finds out when he encounters a Huntress with a penchant for play. Shortish one-shot. Rated T for some language and gore.


_Well, a couple of friends managed to successfully pique my interest in the Left 4 Dead fandom after I spent a little time learning about their awesome Hunter characters… I liked them so much, in fact, that I couldn't resist picking up the game again… and inevitably start falling in love with it. Of course, you know what THAT means; I HAD to create a Hunter character of my very own. Or, rather, HuntRESS. This little fanfic is more or less meant to be somewhat explorative and flesh out her personality a bit, because I thought she'd be rather fun to write for. And I was pretty much right about that… hahaha._

_- Hemoptysis_

_I do not own Left 4 Dead or the Hunters, that much is obvious. I own only Hyena… at least, a little bit._

oOo

**Laughter**

_Okay, there's no way I could be mistaking this now… I've DEFINITELY passed by that dead tree before… oh, SHIT…_

The young man stopped short in his tracks, suddenly paralyzed by a mixture of dread and uncertainty. Shit… shitshitshitshit_shiiit_… this was not good. Not good at _all_. His widened eyes flew upwards to the few small patches of sky visible through the treetops; they'd become a dull pinkish-orange color as the sun had begun to set, dipping low towards the horizon. His palms were sweating, making it increasingly difficult to grip the revolver in his hands… had he _really _been wandering around in these damned woods for that long? Oh no…

He looked all around him, trying his very best to remain calm. He couldn't be caught out here after dark… those… those _things _always started wandering around after dark. Hell, couldn't they come out during the daytime, too? He didn't even know anymore. His whole life had been turned upside-down with the swift arrival of that so-called "Green Flu" virus a few weeks before… _virus_? Like _HELL _it was… no _virus _he knew of transformed people into rabid, zombie-like killers.

The whole "remaining calm" thing was becoming more and more of a struggle for him as he continued to consider his increasingly bleak situation; here he was, one of God only knew how many other survivors there could possibly be, stuck skulking around through condemned and abandoned cities by day and struggling to find some safe place to hole up in by night, heading where, not even he knew… he'd lost his friends, his entire _family_, probably infected by the disease themselves right now, running around, slaughtering everything and anything like wild _beasts_… and now, he quite possibly could've just doomed himself to death, lost out here in these woods. He'd thought it was such a clever idea, too… keep off of the main path, where the "Infected" would most likely be found, and keep pushing onwards through the undergrowth until he hit the edge of the trees… hopefully there'd be a house or an old barn, _something_ nearby that he could hunker down in for the night… he'd figure out a plan from there. But no… he'd only succeeded in walking himself around in circles for _hours_, sweaty, dehydrated, hungry, insect-bitten, and low on ammunition for his only weapon, to top it off… completely and hopelessly _lost_.

By now, he was practically _choking _on mounting terror – and pretty damn close to a nervous breakdown. The sky, or what little he could see of it, was growing darker with each passing minute; it'd be nightfall before he knew it, and far too dark to see. He'd be a sitting duck out here, and there was no doubt in his mind that _they_'_d _find him… and tear him apart. And they weren't even the _worst _ones. Not by a long shot.

A faint wail sounded off in the distance, just _barely _audible on the still, humid air. He gasped and jumped, almost dropping his gun; _SHIT_! That was _definitely _an Infected's scream… they'd be running rampant in these woods in no time at all. He had to get his ass moving _right now_.

He took off, revolver at the ready, trying to move as quickly as possible without rustling the brush too much; he didn't want to alert the Infected to the presence of a possible fresh kill. He hadn't even gone all that far before _something _caused him to stop again… it'd been so quick, so _fleeting_, that he wasn't even sure he'd actually heard it. He remained still, even holding his breath, waiting to see if he'd hear it again… or if he'd only imagined it.

There it was again… a _laugh_. An honest-to-God laugh… and not too far away, either. The survivor felt his body break out into a cold sweat, despite the heat and humidity. It didn't sound… _crazy_, like some kind of random Infected gibberish-talk… it'd sounded quite _normal_, in fact…

He heard it again – a high-pitched cackle of a laugh, and this time, it didn't sound as normal as he'd initially thought… or as far away. Chills snaked their way down his spine; he'd had more than enough of this creepy-ass shit. He started walking away quickly, silently praying that whoever – or _whatever_ – it was doing the cackling would get left behind and leave him the fuck _alone._

He'd only gone about twenty feet or so when, suddenly… something struck him heavily, right in the back, and he was knocked flying onto his stomach. The air whooshed straight out of his lungs, and all he could do was lay there, too stunned to move. He faintly registered a weight pushing off of his back, and another whooping laugh as whatever it was leapt up into the trees, crashing and leaping around in the canopy… he couldn't believe it. Something had fucking _jumped _on him.

He scrambled up on his hands and knees, then staggered to his feet. _Shit_, where was his gun? He caught a faint glimmer of steel in the bushes out of the corner of his eye; _there_! He'd barely had time to grab it and start running before he was knocked sprawling onto his face again, that maddening cackle practically right in his fucking _ear_…

The young man couldn't suppress a shout of fear through a mouthful of soil and blood, and that only seemed to amuse whatever the fuck was crouching on his back right now even more, because it started laughing and yipping hysterically. Listening to it, he was suddenly reminded of something… some kind of animal, he was pretty sure, but one that he couldn't quite place. Not that _that _bothered him; he was kind of focused more on _surviving _right now than pondering over that thought.

"Get… the… fuck… _OFF_!" he gasped, trying to push himself upright and spit out the dirt now sticking to the insides of his mouth. To his surprise, it did; two feet pushed off of his back, and he could hear a tree branch a few feet above his head creak as it leapt onto it, still giggling like it was having the absolute time of its goddamned _life _up there… A random, almost paranoid-sounding thought struck him then – _Is this… is this twisted bastard PLAYING with me?_

Well, _fuck_ if he was gonna stick around here and find out just what this most-likely-an-Infected fucker wanted to do with him! He grabbed his revolver again and stumbled up and away, too freaked out by the laughing thing to pay much attention to where he was going. He crashed through the undergrowth at a full-on run, gritting his teeth against the stinging and smarting scratches of small branches and thorns as they whipped at his face and hands and snagged on his torn-up shirt, his jeans. He could _still _hear that thing whooping and laughing, crashing through the treetops right behind him; how the _hell _was it able to track him through these woods so easily, and when it was nearly _dark _outside, no less?

Running so hard through those bushes, the would-be survivor had barely even realized that he'd started crying, blubbering for his life like a big two-year-old. Even if he somehow managed to lose this thing out here in these trees, he doubted he'd _ever _get the horrific ring of its laughter out of his skull. Oh, how _funny_– _NOW _he could remember what animal it'd reminded him of. Those dog-like things with the short tails and the nasty bites… hyenas, right? The ones that laughed... except, _this _thing sounded like a whole fucking pack of them, nipping right at his heels.

A sudden burst of fading sunlight made him blink, and he almost tripped – he'd reached a wide clearing in the woods, surrounded on all sides by gnarled old trees… no way out but more running through thick undergrowth. He quickly whirled around and backed away into the center, panting, soaked with sweat. The thing that'd been chasing him this entire time made one last little giggle, then fell silent… still somewhere up in those fucking tree branches, watching him… the prey.

The young man finally panicked. He loosed a terrified scream, raised his gun, and starting firing into the trees, desperate to end that terrible cackling once and for all. The loud bangs of gunshots filled the still evening air, and he could even see a couple of bullet holes appear in the trunks where he'd missed… he kept firing until there was nothing left, and his revolver made nothing but an empty clicking sound. He was all out of ammo now… and he had no way of knowing whether or not he'd actually even _hit _the thing.

He swore under his breath, reluctantly lowering his now-useless weapon… the clearing was completely silent. Even the cicadas were strangely quiet, for some reason… but at least there was no laughing to be heard. As his breathing began to slow, he allowed himself to relax a little bit… huh… maybe he _had _hit the damn thing, after a-

An orange blur shot itself out of a tree to his left and, before he'd even had enough time to _blink_, smashed straight into his chest. Again, his breath was knocked out of him, as he and his unknown assailant tumbled head-over-heels across the clearing. Somehow, he wound up on his back, staring up at the darkening sky… while his stalker straddled his torso.

He immediately tried to sit up, but the pain in his chest made it too difficult to move; perhaps the bastard had broken a few ribs. It felt even harder to breathe… wheezing, he managed to lift up his head just enough to catch a first glimpse of the laughing thing… and he froze, his eyes widening with fear.

It was an Infected, all right… he could tell that much just by looking at its exposed limbs, the gray, ashen skin, the sickly, pus-filled boils dotting the arms and legs… but he couldn't get a good look at its face, thanks to the orange, fur-trimmed hood pulled low over the forehead, obscuring its eyes from view… he knew these ones. Oh, he _knew _these ones. "Hunters", he'd taken to calling them… one of the "worse" kinds of Infected. They were loud, agile, powerful, difficult as all hell to hit… and very, _very _vicious. And, for some reason that he just couldn't fathom, a lot of them (not all, though) seemed to favor wearing hoodies, despite the hot, humid weather… but this one was confusing to him. He'd seen what these animals did to people… clawing the ever-loving _shit _out of them until there was barely anything left, as soon as they were on you… but this one was just sitting there on his chest, staring at him. Or, at least, he _thought _it was… he still couldn't see its eyes.

And that wasn't all… as he continued to study it, he realized something with a start; the short, blonde hair hanging loosely around its face, tangled up with blood and grime… the curvature of its body beneath the worn-out hoodie and the baggy, ripped-up pants… the now increasingly-obvious _chest_… holy shit. This thing wasn't male, like all of the other Hunters he'd seen. This laughing little shit was a fucking _female_.

_Well, I'll be damned…_the survivor thought to himself. _Didn't know there were HuntRESSES, too…_

The Huntress suddenly growled softly, and his mind went blank with fear… was this it? Was she going to kill him now? His hands scrabbled at the dirt around them, instinctively searching for his revolver – and then he remembered. It wouldn't even matter if he was still holding it… he'd wasted all of his ammo firing into those trees, hadn't he? He swore wildly inside his head, every curse that he knew… how could he let panic get the best of him? How could he be so fucking _stupid_? He'd just sentenced himself to death, alone, in some clearing out in the middle of nowhere, at the hands of some mangy, disease-carrying _woman_. Way to go, moron. Way to fucking _go_.

She reached up, tugging back her leopard-spotted hood (_Like a spotted hyena…_he couldn't help but absurdly think) and revealing her face… he grimaced in revulsion. The left eyeball was missing, five jagged scars marring the skin around the socket, covered with long-dried blood… she'd probably lost it in a scrape with some other Infected. The right one wasn't much better off; it was a dull yellowish-orange, badly bloodshot, and oozing some sort of foul-looking mixture of blood, pus, and tears… she had to be nearly _blind_, for God's sake. So how'd she been able to follow him through the woods…? (Well… he _had _heard somewhere before that one's other senses grew more powerful to compensate if one became restricted in some way… maybe _that _was it?)

All she did was continue to sit there, studying him… it was weird. Creepy. Why wasn't she _doing _anything…? He stared right back at her, wondering whether or not he should try and move… his eyes moved up and down her dirty, bloodied face, from the gruesome scars right down to the small piercing he'd just noticed through her lower lip; she actually might've been fairly pretty, at some point, _before _she'd been infected… what kind of person had she been in her former life, he couldn't help but momentarily wonder?

He decided to try and sit up. He pushed himself up on his elbows, wincing at the pain in his ribs, and wound up nearly pissing his pants when the Huntress suddenly snarled, grabbing his shoulders and forcing him back down into the dirt. He couldn't _believe _how _strong_ she was, for someone that really wasn't all that tall… staring up at her bared and blood-covered teeth, he didn't _dare _try to get up again.

When she was satisfied that he wouldn't try to get away again, the Huntress' snarl twisted itself into a wide, unsettling grin. She sat back, giggling, until it rose in pitch to a loud, whooping cackle that rattled unpleasantly in his eardrums. He winced. The bitch sure was having a grand ol' time toying around with her victim, wasn't she? Just another cat playing with its mouse… not unlike the rest of them. But… there was _something _about this one that seemed… _off _to him. Different. _Unique_ in a way that he couldn't quite put a finger on…

Maybe it was in the way she'd shifted herself into a casual, cross-legged position on his torso that made him gasp for air… or maybe it was how she'd rested her cheek on her left fist, just continuing to smile down at him, in such a, well… _human_-like gesture that it was almost _startling_… either way, he had a feeling that this particular Huntress wasn't quite as mindless as the rest of these horrific beasts.

So… maybe that meant that she wasn't _completely _beyond all hope of reasoning? It couldn't hurt to try… at this point, he had literally _nothing _left to lose.

"H-hey…" the survivor wheezed, hoping to whatever God there may or may not be that speaking aloud hadn't just sealed him into one grisly fate…

The Huntress lifted her head from her fist, staring intently down at him. She had to cock her head slightly to the left to even get somewhat of a glimpse of her prey through her steadily-decaying right eye.

"Hey… can you understand me?" he asked, his voice tentative and slow. There was no response… she simply continued to stare down at him, unmoving. He could feel himself breaking out into another cold sweat… couldn't she at least _grunt _or something, so he didn't have to feel like he was talking to a _rock_…? It was making him nervous.

"Will… will you let me go?" he asked.

Again, there was no response… only more silence. The Huntress cocked her head in the other direction, blinking. His heart was starting to pound… didn't she understand him? Even if it was just the _slightest _bit...? Or was he just incredibly stupid for hoping she'd let him get away?

"…Will you let me go…?" he repeated a little louder, gritting his teeth against the pain of breathing with likely broken ribs. She snorted, moving back into a straddling position… hell, maybe she really _didn_'_t _understand him. Maybe she _was_ just gonna kill him, devour his entrails, leave whatever scraps remained for the buzzards to pick at, fight over…

Thinking about that, he started crying all over again. Hearing his soft weeping, the hyena-Huntress lowered her head with curiosity. A quiet rumble of a sound began to rise up in her throat, _just _loud enough for the young man to catch… was she… _purring _at him…?

"Please… _please _let me go… pleaaase…" he sobbed, more to himself now than to the Infected sitting on top of him. The Huntress' only reply was the continuance of that purr-like sound, leaning forward until her face was barely two inches from his own, like a lover leaning in for a kiss… he stopped crying, struggling not to gag on the foul odor her rotting right eyeball created. Her breath was on his face and it reeked of blood and something that almost smelled a little like... _fish_...

For a few moments, they stayed that way; the would-be survivor, helpless and pinned, staring with wide, terrified eyes up at his captor, her maimed and expressionless face barely an inch above his… the purring had stopped, and they were both silent.

"…So…?" he asked, in the barest of whispers.

She didn't even move, only blinked… before her face split into another wide, bloody grin and, with a gleeful giggle, she sat back and brought ten claw-like fingernails down on the young man's exposed throat.

A few seconds of shredding and clawing by unnaturally strong hands later, and the main arteries of his neck had been severed. Hot, crimson-colored blood spurted outwards, splashing across the face and hoodie of the young Huntress. His body went limp as he bled out into the soil of the clearing around them… he'd died within seconds. (Not quite as successful a survivor as he would've liked to think… perhaps he should've stuck to the main roads, after all.)

The newly-dubbed "Hyena" licked her lips, the young man's blood still hot on her chin, and further staining her dull orange hoodie. She grinned at the taste of it, and began to giggle, giggling until it rose in pitch to a wild cackle, and then into a full-blown whooping laugh that echoed loudly around the clearing and right up into the night sky itself.

She didn't stop laughing, even when the sounds of ripping flesh and gurgling blood joined in... but not even they were loud enough to muffle it as she buried her face in his ruined throat and began to eat.

oOo

_Yep, she's a Huntress that enjoys playing with her victims a little before she goes in for the kill… and you can plainly see just how she got her name. She's one snarky bitch, that's for sure, but a character I had a lot of fun creating. Can you tell?_

…_I apologize in advance, since I don't believe for one second that this is my best work. First time writing anything concerning Left 4 Dead, and most of this was done in an hour-long binge late at night, hahaha. Curse me and my love of character studies. Still, though, I welcome any reviews. Practice makes perfect, am I right?_

_...I don't think I was all that graphic in describing any gore, but if you feel like I should up the rating on this story, then let me know!_


End file.
